For fitness and strategy, tech scores with this wide receiver

Women don’t just watch football, they play it. Take Adrienne Smith, a wide receiver for the Boston Renegades, a women’s semiprofessional team. Smith averages 24 yards per catch and has scored a touchdown in almost every game this month. Like many of the Renegades, she keeps her income flowing with a day job. Smith has two startups, a tour group for Harlem called Harlem Hip-Hop Tours and gridironqueendom.com, a website for women’s football. Download spoke with Smith about her digital habits.

You admit you don’t like to be tackled — that’s why you stay in shape, lifting and sprinting. How do you track your workouts?

I use an app called SenseMe that I downloaded from the Google Play store. It’s a pedometer and fitness tracker and also counts calories, automatically detects how long you sleep, and detects heart rate and pulse. I use a pen and paper to record my weights when lifting, but a lot of my teammates use a FitBit to keep track of exercise goals.

The Boston Renegades season just started in April — how does the team review game strategy?

Our team uses Google Hangout to do chalk talks. Coaches will go over defensive schemes and plays. Film of our practices is uploaded on huddle.com; that’s where we review footage of our games.
It helps to see yourself on the screen and get that out-of-body perspective. I can see where I need to improve.

With two startups to track, how do you manage all the information on these platforms?

I’m exploring Hootsuite to manage the social media aspects of the companies. And I have to applaud Instagram for finally allowing for multiple accounts without having to log back in and out. I also use ifttt.com (If That Then This), a way to create simple connections between Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other apps. That way, if I post on Twitter, it can automatically be posted on Tumblr, for example.

Do you see all-female football gaining fans?

I do, and I’m heavily into Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as they allow us to quickly create a community of female football enthusiasts. Wherever women are playing football — Poland, Finland, or Brazil — we can post pictures and videos of the game. It’s almost like we are one big team.